BEIRUT (Dispatches) – The parliamentary bloc of Lebanon’s Hezbollah resistance movement says that delay in forming a new government risks Lebanon sliding "towards tension”.
Lebanon faces political deadlock three months after an election that tilted the balance in parliament towards Hezbollah.
Lebanon's first parliamentary vote in nine years was held on May 6, with over 500 candidates vying for seats. Turnout was 49.2 percent, according to officials.
According to official results, Hezbollah and its political allies secured over half the seats.
Hezbollah as well as groups and individuals affiliated to it won at least 67 seats in Lebanon’s parliament, according to the results cited by politicians and campaigns and reported in Lebanese media.
Soon after the May 6 election, Saad al-Hariri was designated to continue as prime minister and began negotiations with the country’s rival parties to form a unity government.
On Tuesday, Hariri called on political parties to "show modesty” in their demands regarding the new government, emphasizing that he is not responsible for the serious delay.
"They are blaming me for the delay whereas each party is clinging to its stances and demands,” Hariri told reporters ahead of a meeting for the al-Mustaqbal parliamentary bloc.
"Everyone must display modesty and sacrifice for the sake of the country,” Hariri pointed out.
But despite him and other leading politicians warning of political and economic dangers, there is no sign yet of the compromises needed to agree on a new cabinet, with Christians, Druze, Shia and Sunni Muslims jostling for ministries.
"(The delay) has started to risk sliding towards tension ... and we warn of the dangers of this,” the group said in a televised statement read out after the weekly meeting of its parliamentary bloc.
Political rivalry led to years of governmental paralysis in Lebanon and the country did not produce a state budget from 2005 until last year. May’s elections were the first in nine years.
The International Monetary Fund has said Lebanon needs "an immediate and substantial fiscal adjustment” to make its public debt - one of the world’s highest at about 150 percent of gross domestic product - sustainable.